we are out vending there's bass 🤘 @kategodart.northsky.social

@kategodart.northsky.social is vending at the thing

www.shadertoy.com/view/XfVXDm

okay i love moving it has taken me a year to rebuild my livestream setup bought this jank Hercules DJ Console 4-Mx for $50 ~10 years ago which is designed for some shit Virtual DJ software but fuck dat i'm a Real DJ so i'm using it with Traktor Scratch Pro now i can do stupid DJ shit like this

makin' sure the Atari ST is ready for the MN RetroTech meetup tomorrow twincitiesgeek.com/mc-events/re...

hell yah its printing will be showing up at the #MNRetroTech Meet TOMORROW!! twincitiesgeek.com/mc-events/re...

people remembered Print Shop exists so i pulled out the free geek free shelf (peace be upon her shelves may she return and lead us to salvation) Imagewriter to see if it works had to save it, the covers aren't destroyed and its super clean inside it has one ribbon, that appears bone dry

reminder that this is all because notorious ancap Eric S Raymond ratfucked the Free Software movement en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...

no beep tho back in the day 12v was mostly for disk motors, audio amps and serial and a trick i'm discovering is you may not actually need 12v for the audio amp, it might limit the maximum volume but jumper 5v over and we indeed get a beep out it 🫡 ...well now i need a damn PC XT keyboard 😩

but never mind that lets see if she chooches info on the 1000 RL is hard to come by, squinting at trickster's old photos, starting from the back there's two 5v wires, two grounds, +12v and probably -12v? lets feed it 5v off the bench supply and YEAH WE GOT DESKMATE BABY! 😎

lets strip it down some nasty battery corrosion around the dallas chip is going to need some cleanup 😬

RELEASE THE TANDY! behold, a Tandy 1000 RL that's sadly been stripped, this particular model was the final and best of the Tandy 1000 line, a last gasp in 1990 of the original PC Jr clone design, highly cost reduced to a handful of chips on a tiny board all later Tandy's are conventional AT clones

well i bought it for CGA but it only came with a VGA cable... Samsung SyncMaster pinouts indicate a straight through DB-9 cable should do for CGA/EGA, found one at Free Geek as well as another soundblaster MIDI cable for a buck each, nice 😎

a few more rounds of attempting to locate the dodgy connection and it just seems to work now??? well i sure don't fuckin' trust it but i need to move on hefted it onto the PS/1 to clear the repair desk and it looks pretty sharp there 😎

so i spend some time untangling and re-looming the sus wiring, and the curse seems reduced to the width changing slightly when you move it wtf

MY FAVORITE THING, INTERMITTENT PROBLEMS! i flip it on its side and manage to slip the board out enough to inspect the solder connections and they all look good and in fact THE MONITOR WORKS PERFECTLY RELIABLY NOW

the cleaner seems to solve the arcing problem, but some intermittent connection demons still lurk inside loosened up the pots on the back so i can actually adjust it a bit, i soaked the hell out the front bright/contrast but they're still locked solid

lot of pots are bent backwards, caps are bent over, stuff is scraped and the cable routing is very sus it seems someone got in here and brutalized it a bit 😥 welp, when there's arcing a good start is to hose it off with electronics cleaner, dust and filth and goo buildup can cause arcs

a useful retro tool, now does it work... on first powerup there's some spectacular arcing around the flyback coil i fail to get on camera, but it settles out and works for a bit most of the pots are really seized up for some reason so i can't really adjust it, but i get some doom out of it

this CRT is unique for being a very early Multisync capable of syncing to 15khz, with both TTL and RGB inputs meaning it can support damn near anything of the day CGA, MDA, EGA, VGA, even SVGA, Atari ST/Amiga/IIgs, arcade boards, exotic workstations and minicomputers, soviet ZX spectrum clones...

a sales brochure from 1989 shows it shares the same chassis as a Samsung EGA, however it appears to have identical specs to the original Samsung SyncMaster and may even be identical in design? ... but i can't find much about the CT4581 SyncMaster either so details remain unknown

i can find next to nothing about this monitor online, just a few ad listings of $439 in PC Magazine from December 1988 a bit pricey, but probably the cheapest with this feature set can't find a thing about Imtec, it seems all Samsung monitors were marketed under this name in 1988 for some reason

apparently i repair CRTs now the new MN Retro Tech Club meet venue is not far from Free Geek so a group shopping run may become a tradition mrmind is back in at FG and there's retro inventory again, ive been looking for a CGA monitor so i picked up this cursed Imtec 1455N manufactured June 1988 😎

this is my fursona, there are many like it but this one is mine 🫡

oof 🧐

so the Minnesota Retro Tech Club has scored the 2D Con LAN party space for a venue and its awesome did some Atari Video Music shenanigans join us next month: discord.gg/WYe4jszuY

@kategodart.bsky.social is vending at Odd Mart in South Minneapolis RIGHT NOW! Please go check it out and support local southside artists!

chilled out by the lake for a bit cuz my back was killin' me

a whistle bike and a dj spinnin' beats